Gaming Target - Game Boy: Sega Smash Pack

Written by Tim McGrew on December 03, 2002

Review: No game had made me want to buy a Sega Genesis so many years later, until now. And for all intents and purposes, that's not a good thing.

Generally speaking, the Sega Genesis is one of the finest platforms ever released. The slew of games available for it and the general massive amount of quality entertainment available is absolutely incredible and at the time was rivaled only by its 16-bit counterpart, the Super Nintendo. During this day and age, Sega actually had its act together in terms of games and hardware and led the market for a time turning heads with its graphical capabilities and excellent hardware prowess. So many years later, however, I wish I could say the same thing, but the glory days of the 16-bit wars are over and all that's left are the quality games constantly remembered by gamers, developers, and publishing houses alike and today, Sega honors three such games from their Genesis library previously never available on a Nintendo console in the form of the Sega Smash Pack for the Gameboy Advance.

When you first pop Sega Smash Pack into the GBA, you are greeted with a selection screen of three games to choose from including Golden Axe, Ecco the Dolphin, and Sonic Spinball. The ports from the Sega Genesis are faithful in most areas, but there are plenty of issues with the overall games to make some nostalgic gamers feel out of place once they pick this one up to play and the problems are much too large to ignore especially for titles that were once heralded as state of the art for their time.

Sonic is no stranger to the GBA and Nintendo in general. He's appeared across both the GBA and the GCN in a number of different ways and Sonic Spinball is his next foray into the GBA scene for this 3-game pack. Basically in this game, Sonic is the pinball on a large table of sorts and it's your job to fling him through it using the flippers to score lots of points and explore plenty of extra areas both as a Sonic-pinball and as just plain Sonic running and jumping over obstacles. There are four tables to play on and each one has a varying amount of detail but a general theme that appears impressive on the GBA. The frame rate is always constant and the animation is quite good just like all the other Sonic games released. Surprisingly enough, Sonic Spinball is the most faithful game in this entire pack despite being the most simplistic and twitch sensitive.

The second game on the pack is Ecco the Dolphin. Ecco is an adventure game where you play as a dolphin exploring the oceans and using your sonic abilities to communicate and defeat other animals as well as an alien entity that has invaded the ocean. Sharks and other sea faring creatures are just a few of your enemies in this game and it's your job to defeat them in a variety of different side scrolling level types. Generally speaking, the graphics in Ecco the Dolphin are very impressive. The animations are of particular note and the number of creatures on screen is amazing as well. The worst part of Ecco is how its beautiful soundtrack from the Sega Genesis game has been replaced with a low tune that is totally insulting to the ears. The sound drones into the background in most instances, but its best if you just turn the volume down to zero while you're playing this game.

Finally, the last game in this pack is Golden Axe. When I used to play my Sega Genesis, Golden Axe was by far my favorite Genesis game during its time. The hack and slash action and combos were magnificent and the multiple hits incurred to enemies really allowed me to dish it out like no other. The character selection was also superb with three characters to choose from with varying attributes as well as a number of different animals that you could ride. Today in this port, not only do the combos fail to translate well, but the combo system and the control is an utter mess. In twitch games such as these, it's absolutely imperative that when you press the attack button, the attack intended comes out and nails your opponent, but sadly, that is hardly the case in Golden Axe. Being my favorite game of the three, I am generally disappointed with this shoddy port and it really bothers me when playing it.